by Jan Delima
“Thank you.” She felt guilty accepting the gift. The weight of it surprised her. “What’s in this thing? Rocks?”
“Hardly,” he said dryly.
Curious now, she started to unroll the top.
He gently covered her hands with his, stopping her motions. “Open it when you reach your destination.”
“Mom, we’re ready.” Joshua headed over. “The car’s all packed. I stacked the coolers so Grandma can have the front seat. And I locked up the cottage.”
“Good luck on your trip, Josh,” Matthew said, holding up his right hand, knuckles forward. “Remember our lessons. And listen to your mother.”
Her son answered with a butting fist. “I will, Mr. Ayres.”
Francine followed, pulling Matthew down for a motherly hug. She always coddled the man as if he were a child, although he never seemed to mind. “Behave yourself while we’re gone.”
Matthew didn’t release her immediately, prolonging the embrace. “I will miss our chess games, Franni.”
“Now cut that out.” She stepped back and shooed him away. “We’ll be back before you know it.”
Sadness hung heavy in the air.
“Okay then,” Sophie interrupted, hating good-byes. She gave her little cottage one last wistful glance. “Time to go.”
Five
LUC CIRCLED THE TRAINING YARD IN A DEFENSIVE CROUCH that demonstrated perfect balance and control. A group of young faces, ages ranging from four years to twelve, stood in a half-moon, absorbing his instruction.
Dylan watched with a heavy heart. Eight children total, eight precious gifts for a dying race—all unable to shift form.
Under Guardian rule they would not survive.
Luc held no weapon, only his hands. He wore sweatpants and sneakers, leaving his chest bare. A new tattoo of a brown owl with outstretched wings covered his torso from collarbone to navel. A cool breeze carried the faint stench of fear. The children had been warned what might be coming.
A few faces turned and noticed their leader, then instantly looked down out of respect.
Luc pivoted to meet Dylan’s stare, his silver eyes piercing the distance. They shared a silent message of sadness.
Too soon. Too innocent. Too weak.
It brought Dylan back to another time, to his homeland, to a place where the forsaken cowered in forbidden forests or suffered under Guardian rule . . .
* * *
THE WANING MONTHS OF WINTER WERE GRAVE TIMES FOR THE outcasts who hid within the northern forests of Cymru, when the earth held no succor, nor color, nor even the shelter of leaves to help conceal their dwellings from the Guardians. Thus when a shout rang out within their camp, alerting of an approaching visitor, Dylan had good cause for concern.
The visitor drew closer; a woman, but barely so—more like a girl. She stumbled into their camp clutching a swaddled infant to her chest.
Dylan stepped into a clearing to draw the girl’s attention away from where their young were kept. Others followed, both in human and wolf form, as curiosity overcame caution. Or perhaps, like Dylan, they sensed another victim of a Guardian’s cruel hand.
Dirt and mire caked the girl’s naked form. The scent of blood clung to her skin, along with more offensive odors. Hair the color of harvest wine hung in ragged clumps to her frail waist. He could only wonder at its true splendor, if it displayed such a color under filth.
“What is your name, child?” Dylan searched indigo eyes for a response and found none. They were too calm, like the great sea after a violent storm when monsters continued to swim within the murky depths.
“Her name is Isabeau.” Elen skirted around the crowd and approached the girl. “Get back,” she ordered, shooing everyone away, but only a few listened. “Her family serves the Guardian Rhun. Last I knew, Isabeau’s mother had been with child.”
Too little time had passed from when Dylan had removed Elen from Merin’s influence. She had recent knowledge of the families who were forced to serve the Guardians—families with daughters and sons and siblings who were unable to draw power from the forest.
With soothing whispers, Elen eased the bundle from Isabeau’s embrace, gently unraveling the woolen cloth. “A wolf,” Elen said softly. “A Bleidd.” Somber blue eyes met Dylan’s and he knew before she confirmed, “’Tis dead.”
Isabeau crumbled to the ground, as if hearing the truth spoken aloud stole her strength, or more aptly—it was the final violation of her will. “They are all dead,” she whispered on a broken sob.
Dylan removed his outer cloak and wrapped it around the girl, but made no further attempt to console her, sensing she would recoil from his touch. “Who is dead, Isabeau?”
“My mother, my brothers . . .” The stench of fear and anguish filled the air, more vile than the other odors that clung to her skin, especially when coming from someone this young. “Rhun killed them all . . . Because of the Bleidd.” But another scent rose above the others. It hinted of vengeance, of power, and of hatred.
She’d been allowed to live, Dylan knew full well, because of the wolf he sensed within her. Had the Guardians not claimed her innocence before, they had done so this night; if not from her body—than from her soul.
* * *
“PRACTICE WHAT I’VE TAUGHT YOU,” LUC ANNOUNCED, snapping Dylan back to the present. His brother dismissed the students. “We’ll meet the same time tomorrow.” After the sound of young voices lessened in the distance, he strode over to Dylan. “Any word yet from your woman?”
Thankful for the distraction, Dylan opened the window of his cell phone then snapped it shut. “No.”
“I could smell the fear of our people this morning.” The disgust in his voice referred to the village meeting, not the children.
“These modern times have made us complacent. It’s why an alliance is necessary.” Dylan folded his arms and looked across the landscape of his territory. “I’ve made the calls. All leaders have agreed to come, except Nia and Kalem, who’ll be sending representatives.”
“Did any of them reveal if the Guardians marked their territories?”
Dylan shook his head. “Our conversations were guarded. No confirmations were given over the phone.” He was not the only leader distrustful of modern technology. “We’ll learn more on Friday, when we talk in person. Until then, we need to prepare. Have you done as I asked?”
Luc gave a sharp nod. “Ceri and Gabriel will take the area directly around the lake house. Teyrnon is set to guard the north ridge. Malsum and John will supervise a crew within the forest. Sarah has the east range. Porter and Caleb will cover the main house with Taran at the entrance gate.”
The strongest had been assigned to protect their most vulnerable points, the lake house being their highest priority.
“I’ve asked the leaders not to draw attention as they arrive, and to keep their guards to a minimum.” It was the second request that concerned Dylan most. More than one leader had been reluctant to concede, Isabeau especially. “Some may send scouts,” he warned. “If so, we must capture—not harm.”
Luc snorted.
Dylan pressed his point. “Keep Taran with you.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I want her at the entrance gate.”
Pressure built along Dylan’s spine in an all too familiar ache. The refusal of a direct command annoyed his beast. Two dominants in one territory had always been a tentative balance, managed only by loyalties stronger than the instinct of the wolf.
He took a deep breath. The human, the brother, must remain in control at all times. “Explain your reasoning.”
Luc stayed calm, recognizing Dylan’s battle, respecting it without challenge. “Our visitors should be greeted with strength. Taran has earned her place in our guard.”
“Fine,” Dylan grudgingly agreed, irritated that his distrust was based on personal misjudgments of his past. “But make sure she knows to stay away from Sophie. I fear Siân has clouded her sister’s judgment.” Ultimately, Taran’s loyalty would lean toward her own
family and not his, and as Siân’s younger sister, her judgment toward Sophie might be compromised. “I don’t trust either wolf around my wife, especially Siân. Her mind has become . . . disturbed.” And because of him, her hatred toward Sophie was justified. “I want her watched.”
Luc gave a sharp nod. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Send Michael,” Dylan added. Of all the guards, Michael had been the first to notice Siân’s odd behavior, and one of the few who had not succumbed to her enticements.
“Michael’s a good choice. Sarah can help cover his watch.”
Somewhat appeased, Dylan fingered his cell, flipped the window open and checked the time, and then pushed a button, making sure the thing worked. When a green number appeared on the small screen, he snapped it closed.
Luc’s eyes followed Dylan’s motions. “Nervous, brother?”
“Bugger off.”
He chuckled, a rare sound of genuine amusement. “Ah, it’s a good day if I can get a rise out of you.” His tone lowered, although his grin remained. “I’m anxious to meet my nephew.”
Dylan turned to the only person allowed to see his concern. “I pray he’s well.”
Luc’s smile faded as he placed a hand on Dylan’s shoulder and squeezed. “He’ll be thin. Sophie won’t have had the knowledge to keep him sustained through his growth period. He may even be stunted.”
“I know.” The heaviness in his chest refused to subside. Even as a latent, the metabolism of two animals in one being needed an enormous amount of nutrition to achieve normal growth. “I’ll take him in any condition.”
“We’ll make him strong.”
“I should have listened to you that night.” Dylan voiced his regret aloud for the first time, wondering with some disdain at his recent lapses into personal reflection. “Sophie wasn’t ready to see my wolf. I thought . . .” He shrugged. “I thought it would help her understand. Koko handled it much better.”
A shadow passed over Luc’s face with the mention of his dead wife’s name. “Koko came from a different people.” A better people, his tone suggested of Koko’s family, a band of traveling gypsies. Like many in the late 1800s, they had come to America for the opportunity to wield their trades. “She understood the power of the earth. Her mind was open, not closed like these modern races.”
There was pain in his voice when he spoke of her, even now after sixty years of mourning.
“But,” Luc continued, “I don’t think revealing the wolf was your greatest mistake.”
Only his brother would dare to make such a comment, the exact reason, Dylan supposed, he had chosen him for this. “And what do you think was my greatest mistake?”
“Voicing aloud your intentions to keep your child. I remember that night well. I didn’t sense real fear from Sophie until that moment.” Luc shrugged. “You should have just kept your mouth shut and done what was necessary when the time came.”
Dylan didn’t respond. Luc wouldn’t understand because he had never truly been mated, but only an ass or an idiot would remind him of that fact. Luc honored Koko as his mate of choice; their union, sadly, had been childless.
Once the wolf intervened and a child was conceived, choice was just a pretty word for bards and philosophers. The human heart can be reserved, even controlled, but the animal only knew want and need.
He had felt Sophie’s intentions that night, and her hatred. Nothing in the world, or Otherworld for that matter, could have kept him silent.
The shrill ring of his phone made him tense, a shot of nightshade tonic preferable to the unnatural sound. “Yes.”
“Hi, it’s me . . . Sophie.” As if she had needed to identify herself.
“I know.” A tacit snarl of satisfaction spread through his limbs. That wanting never receded, regardless of the other mate’s betrayals.
“Um . . . I promised to call you when we reached Maine. We’re in Saco. We should be in Rhuddin Village around four.”
Earlier than expected. “The lake house is ready for you.”
“Thank you. And just so you know . . .” She paused, her voice dropping to a whisper. “My mother’s with me.”
“Your mother?” Dylan frowned, turning his back to Luc’s raised eyebrow. “How much does she know?”
“Not much.” Her voice took on an odd tone, high-pitched. “Nothing of significance.”
“Do you think it wise to bring her now?”
“No,” she admitted.
“Then why do it?” The last thing Dylan needed at this time was another human in his territory, and Sophie’s mother no less.
“You don’t know my mother.”
* * *
RHUDDIN VILLAGE HAD THE APPEARANCE OF A NORMAL town, with a post office, clinic, homes and stores, its secrets well hidden from unsuspecting visitors, as Sophie had learned all too well.
Her heart raced as she drove past the brick church that marked the entrance to the wilderness reserve, where sidewalks ended and asphalt became gravel, where forest and lakes remained forever wild in a valley under a snowcapped mountain—and where Dylan waited not too far away.
“How much longer?” her mother asked for the twentieth time in the last half hour. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
Sophie kept her eyes on the winding dirt road pitted with puddles. “We’re almost there.”
“You said that an hour ago.”
“You didn’t have to come,” Sophie reminded her, immediately regretting her impatience.
Joshua groaned from the backseat, recognizing his mother’s error.
“I’m tired of hearing that tone from you,” Francine snapped, her voice like boiling water over thin ice, a warning that Sophie had stepped too far and was about to fall in. “When you came to me just after your father died, hurt and pregnant . . . and you told me that . . . that man wanted to take the baby from you, what did I do? When you told me that I either had to come with you or go into hiding and forget you—what did I do?”
“You’re right, Mum. I’m sorry.” Sophie tried to defuse the lecture that she knew had only just begun.
“I completely relocated my life, that’s what. Without question. To be with you and my grandchild. I changed my name to Brown, for the love of God. Do you think I’ll walk away now that you’ve decided to face whatever demons you need to face?”
“I said I was sorry.” She ground her teeth. “And Joshua doesn’t need to hear this right now.”
Francine sniffed, her posture going rigid. “Then don’t bring it up again.”
“I won’t.”
“We’re a team.” It seemed she wasn’t quite done yet. “Don’t ever forget that. And if that man even tries to keep me away from my grandson, then he’ll know what it’s like to face the wrath of two Thibodeau women at once.” She blew out a breath of air, fanning herself. “Now look what you’ve gone and done . . . My blood pressure’s all upset.” She gave a low laugh, starting to calm down. “I must admit, it felt good to say my real name again.”
Sophie patted her mother’s arm. She almost felt sorry for Dylan. Almost. “Did you take your pills this morning?”
“Yes, at the rest stop.”
Sophie nodded, recognizing the last turn up ahead. “This is it. We’re here.” She braced herself as the car bounced over roots and holes in a driveway of sorts, protected by a canopy of tall pine trees. She parked her Ford Taurus alongside a black Chevy Avalanche.
Her heart pounded so hard she felt physically ill.
The truck, no doubt, belonged to Dylan.
Sophie forced herself to get out of the car; the scent of pine and forest assaulted her senses and her memories. She tried to calm her emotions, tried to keep those memories at bay, but in the end, her pitiful attempt to shut out the past crumbled under the weight of a simple sound. The soft rush of Wajo Stream could be heard in the distance, the water high from melting snow, bubbling over rocks and fallen trees, taking her back to the last time she’d been in these woods . . .
* * *
She dared not move, dared not breathe.
The soft padded steps of a four-legged beast soon closed in, circled around her—and then paused.
Sophie was trapped, unable to move; her hiding place became her prison. She tried to scramble out but her position was awkward, and the wolf had anticipated her move; the log crumpled just before a sharp pain ran down her side.
Her breath lodged in her throat, stunned as nerve endings screamed. Her vision blurred as she plunged forward onto the wet forest floor. Pine needles and leaves stuck to her face, the cold earth keeping her lucid, reminding her to fight and not give up. She rolled onto her uninjured side, using her good leg to scoot backward against a tree, holding her belly and sucking in deep breaths of air as she lifted her eyes to her attacker.
And a red wolf stared back, eye level to Sophie’s sitting position, smaller than Dylan, with softer lines and golden eyes filled with hatred, too much hatred for mercy.
Sophie recognized her death in those golden eyes, and in a moment of calm clarity, her brain adjusted to her predicament. These were wolves. They did not show compassion. They did not respect fear; prey showed fear.
They understood dominance.
Sophie lowered her chin and leveled a glare at the female wolf. “If you harm me . . . you harm Dylan’s child.”
In response, the wolf lifted her head to the sky. Sophie sensed the air thickening, as if the earth stilled to give its breath, its very life force, to another. And again, in a surreal show of melted fur and broken bone, a being changed its form, this time from a wolf into a woman.
Sophie, unfortunately, recognized that woman.
Siân unfolded into a standing position, naked and unashamed, tall and lithe like an athlete. Wet strands of dark red hair trailed over pale skin as she glared down at Sophie.
“Look at you,” Siân sneered. “So weak. So . . . human.” Full lips peeled back over small white teeth, wolf’s behavior despite the human form. “I don’t believe that child you carry was fathered by Dylan.”